SANTA ANA : Business Fire Causes $20,000 in Damage

A stubborn fire at a plastics recycling company smoldered for hours Thursday afternoon, sending thick black smoke into the sky.

About 50 firefighters battled the flames, which would die down in one spot and suddenly jump up elsewhere.

“These are real tough fires,” said Jim Livingston, a fire safety specialist with the Santa Ana Fire Department. “This material holds embers. You have to dig into the pile (of plastic) and find the embers.”

Fire officials said the smoke from the plastic, also called polyethylene, was not toxic and they did not order evacuations from the area, which is the site of light industry and some homes in the 1000 block of Pine Street.

The fire, which began about 12:30 p.m., caused about $20,000 in damage, firefighters said. Nearby Amtrak trains were halted for about 10 minutes because firefighters needed to lay hoses across a pair of tracks, fire officials said.

Fire Department authorities said they do not know how the fire began at Mega Plastics Co., which recycles plastic into products such as pots for houseplants.

“It really lit up,” said Ruth Thomas, who works nearby. “It spread very rapidly. You could feel the heat even back here,” said Thomas, who was standing about 150 feet away from the yard.

General Manager Frank Schuler said he thought homeless people, whom he had ordered off the property, might have started the fire. A pile of tarpaulins, sheets and a mattress outside the business’s cyclone fence marked what he said was their home.

“I told the people, ‘Hey, look, take your stuff out of here. . . . They stay there all night and they burn candles and if they do that then something like this happens,” Schuler said.

A smaller fire broke out in the yard about two years ago, said Schuler, who also blamed the incident on transients in the area.